


Different

by janazza, WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck



Series: Linked Universe Shenanigans [2]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Link, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Genderbending, Inspired by Mulan (1998), Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Secret Identity, Secrets, Wild (Linked Universe) Angst, Wild (Linked Universe)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janazza/pseuds/janazza, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck/pseuds/WhyDidIWriteThisTrainwreck
Summary: Wild was born a girl and to fit the mold of a hero became a man then didn’t know how to stop being a man. All it takes is being in the wrong place at the wrong time for her secret to slip.OrThe Mulan AU
Series: Linked Universe Shenanigans [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021210
Comments: 57
Kudos: 509





	1. What Makes You A Hero?

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning: this fic is about someone assigned as a woman at birth being forcefully presented as a man. Link/Wild personally thinks of themselves as a woman but takes on a masculine role in disguise with some other stuff down the line. This is not meant to be transphobic but an exploration of gender and gender roles. It’s more or less a Mulan AU? Wild’s pronouns change dependent on perspective. That being said, please, inform me of anything you feel is uncomfortable or could be better presented.

Wild thought them all crazy. They genuinely thought that slop was actual food. A pot should not be buckling like the concoction was toxic and eating away at the metal, but Hyrule stirred his brittle ladle with an unphased smile. Incredible. They were inhuman. Wild snacked on an apple from the slate instead and listened to Wind describe what he called a kraken. 

“Armed with just my bow, I shot at it’s glowing eyes until my last arrow.” He gestured with his hands for emphasis, acting out his attacks and spinning around the fire and other companions as if dodging tentacle arms. “Then, as it tried to close in on its dinner and a stroke of genius by me, of course, I launched my boomerang straight for its stupid eye.” He held the said weapon before him as if it were the master sword, one of his feet balanced on Warrior’s shoulder who laughed. “I couldn’t believe I survived!” 

When the pot bubbled suspiciously, Four leaned over carefully. “Is it possible to grow a kraken?”

“Wait, why is it moving?!”

Hyrule only answered with, “octorok legs.”

“Time! Twilight! Someone stop him!”

Wild rolled their eyes as an argument broke out with Wind holding his boomerang out as if to ward off the beast hidden in their supposed dinner, and Time looked as done as he had when Hyrule first offered to cook. Wild made a note to offer him an apple, too. 

But Wild decided to let them be, checking inventory and making note to scavenge for a shield, maybe pick up some fish if they ended up near a lake to make something edible. Legend leaned over to take a look at the slate, unphased by the antics with his own rations in hand. This was probably a recurring fight. After all, Wild was the latest hero to join them and quickly learnt they were an odd bunch. 

“Anything interesting in there?” He asked before searching through his own bag to bring out a purple framed mirror. “This thing can see things beyond this world.” He sounded bored despite what he just revealed. 

Interesting. Wild thought for a moment before pointing to the metal and very full cooking pot abandoned among all the bickering before switching to the magnesis rune. No one was paying attention but the two of them, that is until it came off the fire and sloshed it’s mix around, splattering onto those that sat too close as it levitated. 

Warrior, specifically. 

Legend bit into his hand to hide back his laugh as the dignified captain screamed, jumping back to avoid the next slosh of puke smelling “dinner” as if his hair and clothes could even be saved. 

“Dear Hylia, you brought it back to life!” A boomerang chlnged against it, knocking Wild’s hold of it, and the cooking pot crashed, spilling its mystery meat stew over the corner of Warrior’s bedroll. There could be heard a “ _why me_?” just over Legend’s uncontained laughter and Wild’s ugly snorts. 

“Look who just signed up for the first watch.”

Perfect. Wild feigned annoyance and nodded at Time, Legend knocking shoulders as he got stuck with second and Wind third. 

It was only the third night since Wild joined them, but it was the first night of peace, where in thankful darkness from the clouded night and light of a low fire that she lifted her tunic, careful of how her ribs ached, and unbound the leather wrap that encompassed her torso, the binder unwinding slowly as it revealed pains she’d ignored from the constant stress of its pressure for such a length of time. She sat far from camp in case anyone woke as she scanned for monsters.

When she would wake Legend, the binder would be back in place. 

* * *

She didn’t understand why the portal would bring them to such a place of horrible memory. 

At the age of twelve, she along with all the other boys her age were taken to the edge of a forest just north of the castle. It stood out strangely, an aura to it that felt similar to the koroks and fairies of her childhood. 

She stood before her captain as he explained their role to meaningless wander the forest until it spat them back out or took them to a sacred place. Terrible history plagued it, many children never leaving the dense forest and supposedly lost forever. An older knight once said around a fire that the forest loved their childish youth and held them forever to be its skull kids, not that Link ever believed him.

It was the same time the annoying leather wrap had made its way around her waist and itched and bunched awkwardly. It was close to the time she would stop speaking all together. As the boys around her voices cracked then smoothed to something deep, hers would not. Nonetheless, she entered the forest, losing the other knights in training in the dense fog until it cleared, revealing sun and lush greenery, including flowers she remembered once being in a pot in the castle library. Her captain didn’t say what to do next, but that’s okay because a literal tree started speaking. 

“Wild child.”

It granted her the sword and sealed her fate as the appointed knight of a very pissed princess Zelda.

A hundred years or so later it would call her weak.

Another year and she stood in front of it among eight other heroes more worthy than herself. 

And it showed, as Time stepped forward and greeted it like an old friend rather than the being to take the last of her freedom, while Wind debated if this could be the same tree of his flooded Hyrule. None were quite sure where Wild fit in the timeline, another obscurity. 

But it greeted them warmly, even though the great tree had not seen Wild since she pulled the sword, swearing to never step foot in this place again. Time asked it questions about their quest, yet Wild tuned them out as little hands pulled at her pant leg. She looked down to the koroks at her feet and their excitement at seeing her, like children. 

Only one of her companions noticed her slip away. Wind thought the Koroks in this land to be pretty cute. One made its way onto Twilight’s shoulder and another dangling from Legend’s hat, but he didn’t think anyone else could see them, maybe Time, but he’s talking about the future and timelines and some sort of dimensional breaks with the tree like it should know all about that stuff. 

But he noticed how the koroks swarmed around Wild’s feet, guiding him away from the group and somewhere around a bend in the forest. Wind looked back at the enraptured heroes and followed, scooping up one of the little tree children that would have been stepped on by Warrior. 

It’s a really pretty forest. Ferns littered the floor and vine climbed up the trees. He followed behind until Wild crouched down to an awaiting tight group of Koroks. They whispered things that Wind couldn't hear from his distance, but the closer his proximity the greater his smile. 

“—gift for a hero!”

“For friend!”

“Best friend!”

“Come here!” The swarm of koroks pulled down at the hero’s hands, and Wild leaned forward further so the tightly knit group of koroks could place something on his head. 

Wild blinked, brushing his fingers against the ring of flower that adorned his head, a crown of lily like flowers accented with strips of blue through pale petals.

“Pretty!”

“Your favorite! Our favorite!”

The korok in Wind’s hands wriggled until free to join the others in their cheering and stares of awe, catching Wild’s attention to the onlooker. He stared back and Wind smiled sheepishly. 

“Looks good on you!” He stepped forward, careful where he placed his feet for the little koroks. “What kind of flowers?” 

Wild watched him carefully, searched for something, and whatever he found made him breathe easily. “They’re called silent princesses. It’s considered Zelda’s flower, though it can’t be grown domestically.” Another Korok held a single flower up to Wild which he takes. 

“So they’re wild like you?”

The boy smiled. “Har har, very funny.” Wild turned to him with a cheeky grin and brought the flower to Wind’s ear, inserting it into his hair. “There. We match.”

“Pretty!” 

The koroks giggled amongst themselves as Wind sat down beside Wild, others fiddling with his hair and entangling more messily while more dozed in their arms. 

It would be some time before the others would find them seemingly talking to themselves, but Time smiled warmly at the tree children dozing in their hands and braiding Wild’s hair. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to visit this forest.

* * *

She arrived in Kakariko Village in ragged clothes and splitting shoes, her legs aching from nonstop travel and the monsters that slowed her down. But a woman beneath the tree noticed the slate on her hip and stared at her oddly, like Link was an enigma. And upon the guards too recognizing the Sheikah slate, they let her in warily unsure of what they were seeing. Whispers followed her until the doors of the hut closed behind her, and before her sat an old woman who smiled warmly and told her just who Link was. 

Link was a royal knight, appointed to princess Zelda and gave Hyrule hope after the first Blood Moon caught so many off guard. The hero was powerful, fierce, and loyal, protecting the princess with their entire being. They were youthful but held every value of the Hylian Kingdom in their stoic silence.

They were a young man. 

Among the tunic of the hero was a leather wrap that was as familiar as the royal blue. 

Impa smiled sadly at her. “It would bring people hope to see the hero of old return, rather than someone new.”

“But I am still the same being.” She spoke with a voice painfully low and husky, the damage to her throat still there after one hundred years, and it only continued to fuel Impa’s narrative.

“Not in their eyes.”

Link bound her chest from that day on. Only the people of Kakariko and a single keeper of a bridge knew Link as the young woman from the Great Plateau.

And even after saving the princess and restoring the castle, the binder remained as she stood as the hero of Hyrule and hero of the Wild. 

Trekking into the small village with eight heroes in tow was nerve wracking. But Impa was the best chance for guidance to their journey. A trail of black blooded monsters led them there, anyway, and thankfully the village still stood in tact hidden between the mountains. 

It’s just that she didn’t expect someone else to be there as well.

“Link!”

Her voice was cheerful, excited, but Link’s-- no, Wild's-- heart seized as the group drew nearer to the princess of Hyrule. The others were none the wiser, not when she wore Sheikah robes and her hair pinned into a bun coming from the market. She waved at them and Link couldn’t just ignore her now.

She smiled so warmly these days, not like anything from her memories. She wondered if Zelda never knew the truth about Link, not until her last moments when the guardian’s laser burned away both clothes and flesh and Link screamed impossibly high.

“Link, you’re okay!” Her actions are quick and open, dashing towards them and holding Wild tightly. “Where have you been?” 

“That’s actually why we’re here.”

“We?” She looked over Wild’s shoulder to the odd looks from eight heroes. “They are. . . ?”

“Historic figures, apparently. Something about portals and timelines I didn’t pay much attention to.”

Zelda gasped only for her look to sour. She looked over Wild carefully. “They’re all _—_ ”

Wild shook her head. Not here. The others didn’t know her truth. Such a response saddened her for only a moment before she introduced them, her hand outstretched and too excitedly for a princess. “I’m Zelda!” 

How strange. Time knew they were missing something, but just what seemingly didn’t matter as of yet. The princess spoke excitedly and brought them to the elder. How strange to see a princess so care free, and her knight so stoic. A sun and her cloud. From what Wild had told them, Zelda should be her own storm from a hundred years of pressure by malice, yet she pulled Wild along by the hand and asked an abundance of questions that they could barely satisfy.

How can she be such a light and her knight such a shadow?

* * *

Hyrule saw himself a lot in Wild. Both were more or less quiet, often choosing to set their bedrolls away from the dogpile of heroes and never first to speak up. But there were just as many differences too. 

“C’mon. The water’s great!” That was Wind, the boy balancing on a rock then declaring himself king. Little did he know that Warrior nor Twilight would go down without a fight. Four and Time found themselves on the shoreline with their toes in the lapping water and perhaps devising their own scheme. Legend found himself rifling on his own smaller rock that Wind said was for a princeling, but Hyrule spotted the ice rod and forming snowballs behind his back. This was war. 

But Wild? Wild still sat alone fully dressed despite how Wind declared the island safe and the boiling sun making him sweat. Even Hyrule rid his tunic and shit, kicking off his socks and shoes, but the idea of knocking Wind off his declared thrown sounded very enticing. 

Hyrule had turned to Wild with a shrug. “You wanna overthrow a monarch?”

“Not my style, ‘Rule.” Wild balanced his arms on his knees then ducking his head away when Hyrule stared too long. His hair was pulled back tightly in a manner that revealed the left side of his face.

“Is it the scars?”

Just nights before scars came up. It wasn’t serious, just a silly measuring contest telling stories of things like death with the same casual nature to talking about the weather. They were heroes, each having seen their fair share of scares and danger. It didn’t seem to be a big deal. 

Then eyes turned to Wild, who had scars peering through his hair and scraping into his cheek and brow, swallowing his neck. It hadn’t been brought up, just another feature of heroic-hood and the many things that each other knew not to push from each other.

Wild gave them an impressive stink eye. “I’m not stripping for a measuring contest.”

That got a laugh, but he did pull back his ridiculously long hair and the marred skin that made up his neck, bleeding through his ear and hair. 

“That looks gnarly!”

“Can you even hear in that ear?”

“It’s fine. No real issue except when I’m sick, but that’s probably phantom more than anything. It must have been blown off or just dangling there.” There’s a clinicalness to his words, a bit detached.

His nonchalant manner of speaking brought a shiver down Hyrule’s spine even as Twilight noticed Wild’s squirming from the attention to tell his own tale of scarred hearts like a lovesick puppy. Hyrule didn’t forget the wounds like flames and the image of torn skin and cartilage nor what would be the imagined stench of burned flesh invading his nostrils. It would be traumatizing to anyone.

At the guess, Wild’s eyes widened then coughed. “Uh, yah. Very private. Don’t anyone need to see that.”

Hyrule nodded but said, “You know they won’t judge.”

“Yah, I know,” Wild agreed, and it sounded like he meant it. “Just not . . .” There came a pause and a strange thoughtful face before Wild turned to his slate. “Is water armor okay, you think?”

Hyrule looked on to the boys still splashing each other and Wind dodging snowballs by redirecting the wind itself. “If you can knock off Wind? I’ll take it.”

He smiled before standing up and telling him to keep an eye out for him. Hyrule moved to the water then, catching Wind’s attention as the younger boy cheered and Twilight made worried glances towards the shore in search of Wild.

Hyrule was down to just his shorts in the water and standing proud. “You think you get to be King of the Rock just like that? Think again.”

Wind played into it, puffing his chest out and grinning. “Oh, you and what army?”

There was a flash of blue of something moving beneath the water at unnatural speed for a Hylian, and for a second Hyrule thought it a lizalfos. It caught Four’s attention on shore, who nudged Time to look. 

But for the rest of them? Nothing prepared them for the sudden sea monster to grip the boy’s leg, neither did it ready them for a suddenly flying Wind in the direction of Hyrule’s awaiting arms as the beast climbed the simple protruding rock. 

Legend frowned. “Is that—?”

Wild stood before them looking more fish than Hylian, and a little too slow did it click the similarities to Zora rather than octoroks, hands on his hips and grinning. “This army.”

There came a fit of giggles over Wind’s “No fair!” It became a sudden mad dash to overthrow the dictator, Legend abandoning his post and Twilight and Warrior deciding tackling would be easier. 

And yah, maybe Wild played a little rough, but it wasn’t like Twilight didn’t suddenly pull out iron boots and no wave sent from Wind or Warrior hopping on his back made him move. 

Wild couldn’t remember a time where she laughed so hard, and it gave pause for the rest of the group at the sound they’d never heard before.

Wild would thank Mipha silently that night, her mind racing at the thought that the Zora must have known her secret, for the armor itself was beautiful and not made for a flat chest, but rather padded in such a manner to hide any curves. It was one of her most treasured pieces drenched in bittersweet. But surrounded by people that could be like brothers, such thoughts filled her with peace.

* * *

Link was born as Aryll to a knight who wanted sons, yet when her brother was born, her mother passed in the process and he along with her in less than a day. It was just her and her father who had to return to his duties even after such a travesty. There was little time to grieve and her own father told her not to cry.

It would be only weeks that she learnt the importance of a son, why the elders of her village looked on in confusion and unspoken questions for what her father planned to do. He took her with him, a simple grave behind their house and whittled sticks to mark their graves as her last memory. Ophelia and Link, taken too soon. 

As a child she wandered like an unanchored soul, one that did not know worries. It kept her busy in their small village in exploration of nearby ruins and finding new ways to terrorize her neighbor with a well placed cucco. As her father brought her along to his station near the Zora Domain, it wasn't uncommon for her to leave his sight and come back with things rather unlady-like in just their travel to the domain— like a fish caught with her bare hands and fireflies she insisted were fairies shoved in her pockets. A frog hidden in her coat once managed to hop onto her father’s commander, it’s slimy mucus ruining his already too gelled hair before she could even be introduced. 

And it was in that act she learnt her place.

And she learnt that when she introduced him to his commander that she was to fulfill a role that was destined for her only a day old gone so quick brother. It was why a boy and son of a knight from her village, Taka, left home at ten.

In every knightly household, a first born son is expected to join the guard. Her father introduced her as Link, and she never heard the name Aryll ever again.

That is until she found herself on an island with their youngest hero, a place he called home for his grandmother and sister and a Zelda so unlike any Zelda Wild could imagine. 

But Wild’s breath caught in her throat when Wind introduced them to a little girl with pigtails and eyes so full of wonder untainted by duty that Wild thought herself in a dream. 

The little one barely let go of her brother long enough to wave at them before going back to gripping her brother’s arm like a sloth no matter how hard he tried to pry her off. The troop laughed at the display, excitedly following for the prospect of a hot meal in an actual house with real beds. 

All except for one.

“Where’s Wild?”

“Dear Hylia, not again.”

Four looked around before sighing. “I’ll get him. This island can’t be that big.” He just hoped he wouldn’t miss dinner.

True to his word, the island really wasn’t so big and only held so many possible places to avoid others. Four climbed the watchtower’s ladder to find the lost hero very much in thought, such to a point that Wild only flinched attentively when a finger tapped his shoulder. 

“Sorry.”

Wild shook his head. “It’s okay. Sorry, I got sidetracked.” He stared back off to the endless ocean and sky, clouds rolling in in promise of a storm. 

Some place for sidetracking. Four took a seat just feat away. “‘Something on your mind?”

He learned much earlier that Wild was rather quiet. He spoke rarely in the beginning, sometimes opening his mouth just to snap it shut. But in time of meeting the others his confidence grew and whatever fear had wrapped his throat faded. It was odd sometimes to hear as his throat worked to push out words, his voice sometimes wheezy after a fight and scratched as his normal. He wouldn’t be a singer, but neither would Warrior who belched his words after just a few drinks. Wild these days only grew so quiet when talking about himself. 

Wild bit his lip before asking, “do you ever think about what. . . What you would be if the sword never chose you?”

That made him pause. “Sometimes.” When Wild wouldn’t look at him he said, “Sometimes, yah. I wonder if I would be a blacksmith or something now, maybe courting someone from town. . . What brought this up?”

Wild shrugged. “I was just thinking. That little girl, she reminds me so much—“ his breath hitched then settled. The waves beat against the sand, creating a white noise that blocked everything out.

“Do you have family?”

“Yah, yah. I had. . . “ _(how cruel, how selfish was she?)_ “— a sister.” _(To ignore her brother and cry over herself?)_

 _Had ._ Four knew what happened to Wild’s land, how the Age of Burning Fields killed those that survived the initial onslaught of Calamity. “I’m sorry.” Such useless words. “How old was she?”

 _Ten when Aryll died and “Link” was born._ Her grave should be nestled beside her mother whose face she no longer remembered. “Too young. . .” Wild breathed, eyes closed, scrambled memories compiling into a hole ridden patchwork she called a mind. “I don’t remember what her smile was like.” Did she smile? Yes, she had to have, because that’s what her father told her when they spoke quietly away from the barracks. He said she was sunshine. Could she really have been that person? Her calloused fingers and marred scars that ruined her hair line around her ear— it’s hard to imagine a before, even something beyond the responsibility thrown on her shoulders that weighed her lips to sworn silence. 

Four watched, followed the intensity of Wild’s brow and grimace of painful memories and thoughts he could only gleam were feelings of failure. He didn’t know why he said it, but— “I can’t imagine. I have brothers, sort of. We all fight and argue and speak over each other.” Right then, they were quiet but encouraging, Green fronting as usual. They were a network, parts of a whole and unique to never replace another. He would never replace another. “I couldn’t imagine losing them. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine. It’s not like I remember much anyway. Hard to miss something you don’t remember.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t have value to you.” Four sighed and leaned back on his palms. “I know it isn’t much, but these past weeks with all of you, fighting together and telling stories around the fire, it’s felt like home. It’s nice. It’s not the same, but. . . I don’t know, I’m glad you’re here with us.”

Maybe Wild could read between the lines, because he smiled, turning to him fully. “Thanks. It’s been fun.” 

It wasn’t perfect. Things cannot be changed, but at least they were among others who understood. He wondered if Wild knew that, that hiding up on a watchtower shouldn’t be his first option. 

Suddenly, Wild stood. “Well I’m excited to try this grandma’s recipes.”

“You mean steal them?”

Wild smiled cheekily before offering a hand to pull Four to his feet, the two heading for the small house bumping shoulders as they went. 

* * *

Warrior groaned when he realized there were only eight. “Anyone see Wild?” 

“Wasn’t he with you?”

“Wild!” 

“He’s probably just taking a picture or something."

“Or maybe he found a hoard of hearty radishes!” They salivated at the thought. Wild was divine with a cooking pot.

Time, having taken the front considering it was his Hyrule, shook his head. “There isn’t anything like that here.” 

Twilight looked among the group before sighing. “I’ll take a look around. We’ll meet up in the town.” Time would let him go easily, knowing of his other form and tracking ability, and really Wild wasn’t all that hard to find. He’d only slipped off the trail minutes back, pausing in areas likely finding a mushroom or something to take a snapshot of. Oddly enough, his princess was a scholar, and Wild carefully documented the other Hyrule’s flora and fauna like he himself was such a researcher. 

He should be just around the bend. With his canine senses, he smelt the algae and sound of rushing water before coming upon the small pond and waterfall. Of course, Wild found his own little oasis and took a rest. He growled in annoyance, already thinking he’d make one of Wild’s bracers a chew toy when he wasn’t looking later.

Except for _—_

He tumbled in his steps then froze. 

Wild took notice, sitting on the bank down to just an undershirt and trying to cover himself with something leather over his chest to hide. He breathed in relief. “Oh, it’s just you, Wolfie.” He let go of the leather.

And the gears in his canine mind whirred viciously, unable to comprehend what he saw and what he thought he knew. 

Wild knelt forward on the bank to scrub the blue tunic submerged in its water. “Sorry, buddy. Didn’t want to show up with monster guts on me. 

Twilight hadn’t even noticed the harvested octorock beside him . . . her?

Wild was a woman. 

Wild had toned arms from rigorous work and hours with a sword, had strong cheek bones and and an air of stoicism that once getting to know them registered as shy. His voice was husky and deep from injuries that the shrine could not fully heal. Wild just had scars they didn’t like showing off. 

No. Wild had curves and small but obvious breasts. Had he never seen Wild dress down in front of him? In front of any of them? 

“I know, buddy, just hang on.” Wild set the tunic aside before standing up and breathing deeply. “I just needed a moment.”

A moment for _—_?

Wild picked up that long piece of leather, bringing it around her torso, winding it carefully, methodically, like she’d done it a thousand times it was muscle memory. The soaking wet tunic fell into the slate before Wild brought out another, simple and a deep blue. Twilight recognized it as the one Wind gave to him when they were on Outset Island. 

And once on Wild looked like a man. 

Twilight whined.

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Let's go, boy.”

No, that’s not what he meant. His whole chest hurt, confused and hurt and even more confused for why Wild had kept something like this a secret. He thought _—_ he thought Wild was warming up to them. 

Wild only ruffled his fur and headed back towards the main road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you DreamoftheWild for making fanart which you can find [here](https://dreamofthe-wild.tumblr.com/post/641061256030208000/fanart-for-janazzaas-fanfic-different-on)!!!
> 
> Lidoshka also made fanart that you can find [here](https://lidoshka.tumblr.com/post/643465836347146240/flowers-for-a-friend-part-of-the-linked-universe)!!
> 
> go give them some love!! <3


	2. What Makes You Worthy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning provided in the end notes for any concerns.
> 
> I should note the binder I was thinking of was something similar to what is in Mulan 2020 (while I’m completely on board for the boycott, it was already bought by my in law (wasn’t really worth the money. Felt like the Lion King Remake). If you haven’t seen it, it’s more or less a long leather wrap that is tied around the waist with a basic tie to keep it all together. Considering the style of the tunic Wild naturally wears, I think such a style would work well especially in a Hyrule that doesn’t really talk about or possibly have people deciding to live a different gender than what they were born assigned as.

Warrior’s Hyrule was exhilarating. 

Twilight entered into a land unlike his own, in which every person close to Warrior engaged in war, slept in the barracks or castle, or at least had seen the battlefield themselves. It was bizarre, being someone from a small country town, his real only links to such nature through Midna and Zelda, but Warrior suddenly came to life in a way he hadn’t seen. 

The man in question spun around, arms wide, and a playful grin. “Everyone, welcome home!” 

Despite his title as captain, his seniors in age were quick to put him in his place with headlocks and playful shoves, chirping like frat boys more than guards, and he thrived. The others shared a look and shrugged as knights clapped them on the back as if they’d known all of them for years. He saw Wild trade remarks with a knight in seconds, the two instantly heading for the training field and Hyrule in tow. The latter smiled at the growing group following them, and a lump formed in Twilight’s throat. Were they going to—?

He shrugged off the general trying to speak to him to follow, and he heard Sky apologize, but his focus was on Wild’s back. 

Those in the training yard they’d met earlier only smiled and stepped out of the way with the encroaching crowd around a simple outlined training circle. Hyrule quickly stepped into the center first, his pack tossed to Wild and waiting patiently for the first knight to approach. Wild noticed Twi and beckoned him forward. “Hyrule’s gonna wipe the floor with them.”

He crossed his arms and looked to the burly knight, dressed down to training grieves but a head taller than the boy. “You sure about that?”

A third joined them, a cadet for sure. “Dude, is a small fry like him gonna be okay?” Wild smiled beside him at the knight shaking her shoulders almost violently. 

And Twilight grit his teeth, a growl at the back of his throat ready to throw off the knight. Wild didn’t like touch, used to flinch and step back, even for medical attention, and it was more than just her secret. She watched their hands once like waiting for a strike.

But Wild looked at Twilight oddly. “Hyrule’s more than capable. Just like the rest of us.” She shrugged off the cadet's arm easily just as Hyrule brought his enemy to the ground. “Ooh, what was that, ten seconds?”

There’s more knights cheering and laughing at the quick display and others wanting their turn. With the more unarmed, knocked down, or kicked out the ring, the more seemed to join the crowd to watch. 

“Phew! I’m beat.” Hyrule rubbed the back of his neck, his hair matting to sweaty skin. “Wild, you wanna turn?”

There’s a cheer and many eyes, and Twilight gripped her shoulder and said lowly, “You don’t have to prove anything.” So many people, and Wild hated crowds, too.

But Wild raised her eyebrow then didn’t look back when she took the center of the training circle, pulling from the Sheikah slate a—

A pot lid.

And a spoon. The same spoon she used for making dinner.

What is she doing?

“What is he doing?” someone shouted, and Hyrule snickered before taking Wild’s place beside Twilight.

Twilight whined deep in his throat. “He’s going to get hurt.”

But what did he expect but for Hyrule to quirk an eyebrow? “Yee of little faith. Did you forget the pitchfork story?”

“Pitchfork?”

Hyrule watched as a towering knight stepped forward, an axe in each hand and discomforting grin. Twilight didn’t like it. But everyone else seemed to eat it up. Standing in front of her, Wild looked so small, frail compared to the raw muscle hidden beneath armor, certainly more prepared than the other knights so far. “Wild said he was surrounded, breaking everything on his way to protect Hateno from some moblins, right? And the only thing in sight was this old farmer’s pitchfork.” 

Hyrule leaned back without a single ounce of concern as the knight, still completely armoured in Hylian metals, a helmet hiding bloodthirsty eyes, took the first swing. Wild ducked easily, pivoting when it came down towards her. “Took out the moblin’s knees,” Hyrule continued. Instead of dodging, Wild waited until the last second, Twilight’s heart in his throat, to parry it and knock the man off balance. Then with the spoon, the handle thin but sturdy, aimed for the unprotected joint of the knee which buckled.

“Unarmed it.” Dodging to the side as the axe came down, Wild wacked straight for the unprotected wrist in a perfect impression of Uli when Twilight tried to take a finger full of cookie dough. The second axe aimed for Wild’s face, but the wooden stupid pot lid caught it’s momentum, sinking into the wood and so close to Wild’s arm. But Wild planned for it, planting her foot on the knight’s chest and kicking off, flipping back and managing to wrench the axe from his hands with it still stuck in her shield. 

“Then aimed for the head.” She wouldn’t do that, but knocking off the helmet, it clattered easily, and Wild held her spoon as if it were the master sword.

The crowd was cheering.

She won. 

And the next knight stepped forward just as excited to have a go, and only change Wild made was replacing the pot lid for a Sheikah eyed shield. 

“How interesting.” 

Twilight turned to the feminine voice in the crowd, a woman with white hair and similar red paint to the women of Wild’s Kakariko Village. The same eye of the Sheikah marked her armor. This must be Warrior’s Impa. “I can’t say I’ve seen a fighter so resourceful.” She chuckled, shifting her attention from the fight to Twilight. “Come now, did you really think a hero of courage can’t handle himself?” It was a jab at Twilight’s earlier display he didn’t particularly care for. She didn’t understand.

But Impa didn’t stick around, heading off where Warrior still stood laughing among a group of soldiers with Four at his side. At the sight of Impa, Twilight could swear he paled, and he realized she was a warrior, herself. He should have noted the armor and weapons at her hips. She could handle herself. . . So could Wild.

And turning back to Wild, he watched carefully, waiting for a sword to knick, a kick to snap bone, or a jab just right to knock her to the ground. Yet when he looked at her eyes, he realized something:

She was smiling. 

* * *

Link was an outcast. 

Since drawing the sword, she did not sleep in the barracks and what perfect timing too as her secret became harder to hide. In her own quarters across the hall from Zelda’s, she fought with the leather wrap around her torso more than she fought monsters. It itched and rubbed at times, but perhaps worse was the moments of overheating.

It was summer and training never let up just because she had been chosen. In fact, it was tenfold, and the treat of hydromelon that morning wasn’t enough to fight off her panting. The others were miserable too, wiping at brows and some decided they’d rather accept cuts and scratches on their bare skin than deal with armor. Their drill sergeants didn’t mind as long as they worked.

But Link couldn’t do that. Even if not for her secret, she had an image to uphold, one demanded by the king. 

With a training sword in hand, she swung at the other knight who blocked easily, a test of form.

“Again.”

She did. They’d been at it for hours non-stop. The knight before her was fresh from a break she had yet to receive, not until she completed her drills. He had a year on her, used to be someone she sat next to for dinner in the barracks. These days, none of them really spoke to her.

“Remember, feet apart.”

She did so.

“You’re getting sloppy.”

She fixed her arc, focusing on control. 

“Switch to left handed.”

She did. Every swing and twist made the binder rub against her skin. She would have worn an undershirt to avoid such chafing, but so many layers would have made her useless much earlier in the day. Swing after swing after swing. She breathed in hot air and her sweat didn’t cool her. She panted heavily, silently, and the knight before her watched her with mild concern.

“Uh, sarge? I think he’s gonna pass out?”

Who’s going to? She looked off to the drill sergeant, the man’s arms crossed and look unwavering. This isn’t the first time such a conversation had been brought up before. But she was the one who drew the sword. She couldn’t afford to slack off. 

Maybe it was because of the permanent red tinge of both heat exhaustion and sunburn, or maybe how she wheezed, or how her stance wavered, because the sergeant sighed deeply and wouldn’t look at her. “Drink something and return in five minutes.”

Five minutes. She moved sluggishly, and the knight did not follow her. Of course he wouldn’t. She walked past the few trainees on break to a lone tree where her canteen laid. It was easier this way, away from them. Sitting next to them only to eye her oddly, share looks, sometimes of awe, others of disdain, majority in cool indifference— it was better to never give them a chance to ignore her as they spoke over her like she was a part of the decor or rouse hostility with her presence. 

Pulling the sword had only put a spotlight on a snail. It did not change it, didn’t it make it more interesting, not when it could not speak or relate, not when its drill sergeants spoke of it with pride only for it to struggle to keep up, not when it slept in a plush bed inside the castle while they shared bunks in the barracks, quested together, ate together. She was only an enigma during training, someone the most cocky of them challenged to prove not just their strength, but her weakness, nothing more. 

She sipped at her canteen and focused on the tightness around her chest.

But as they dodged swipes and gave tips to their form, snapped back from surprising speed and strength from these knights of Warrior’s Hyrule, they wondered if this is what it could have been like among his own peers. 

And yah, maybe he broke his favorite spoon, but the excitement of the knight asking how to incorporate backflips in fights quickly became the best conversation he ever had with a fellow soldier. 

* * *

Of all places, the portal spat them out in the middle of a very familiar desert in very dangerous grounds. At least they were at the top of the Southern Oasis, a perfect spot to camp until Wild could warn them properly and they could fight in the light of day. Whether or not it was infected wasn’t the issue. Their entourage wouldn’t make it out of the desert with it stalking them in the sands. 

But it brought up interesting topics.

Time elaborated smugly of proving his prowess against his Gerudo, becoming a great thief to outmaneuver the clan. The campfire sang and Wild cut up endura carrots until Twilight insisted he do it for her. Whatever, he’d been weird the past weeks or so, maybe missing home considering they have yet to reach his Hyrule since Wild joined. 

“What about your Gerudo, Wild?”

She coughed into her hand and Twilight noticed. “It's a domestic town and they’re nice but only allow women. Apparently, there used to be tons of stalls outside it’s walls before for everyone, but Calamity recalled their seclusion for safety. Snuck in. Pretty tough, but it’s possible.” She deflected to asking Wind why Zora didn’t exist in a Hyrule made of mostly water, but Twilight was lost in thought as he methodically cut vegetables. 

She probably just took off that leather wrap and walked right in without a second thought, right? If only women may enter such a town, that could be fixed in a quick outfit change for her/him. He wasn’t sure what they truly wanted to be, what they saw themselves as. Did they like it? Being dressed incognito but all so much herself _(theirself)_? The veil, the one Warrior and the rest teased her over and tossed over her head while she ran frantically to hide her shame, only for Wolfie to join in. Twilight thanked that Wild didn’t know it was Twilight, because his bowl was the only one not overwhelmed with Goron spice and she, maybe they, stuck close to him for the rest of the week. 

But how horrible were they to tease like that? No, no, they thought it was some date or lady back home, maybe a souvenir. They weren’t making fun of Wild specifically, not in that manner. 

Looking over to Wild and the slate set down just in reach, he wondered how much of the clothing inside it’s inventory was feminine like that. Is that how she wishes she could dress but saw their group of Hylian men and boys and thought this necessary? No, even Zelda had used masculine pronouns. So what is it? 

A stupid voice in his head said to just ask, one that sounded very much like Wild’s Zelda. 

Zelda had caught him alone in Kakariko Village the second time the portal brought them so close. Perhaps for guidance, Time suggested, and on the outskirts of the village knelt the princess before tombstones dressed in the garb of the Sheikah. He’d apologized, tried to leave, but she beckoned him to sit in the damp grass beside her and the bowl with something smoking inside. 

He’d barely gotten comfortable when she smiled sadly at him. “You know, don’t you?”

“Princess, what—”

“No titles, please. I’ve yet to earn it. You’ve seen my home, have you not?”

“Zelda, what is it you think I know?”

She sighed deeply, shoulders sagging, and he wondered what kind of pressures lay on her shoulders even now after Ganon’s fall. “The way you look at my Link, you at least have an inkling. Your eyes have changed.” Looking towards the road towards the village and she saw no one. “I have a bit of a story to tell.”

It was true then, that Zelda did not know Wild’s truth until it was too late. Link was everything she wasn’t, a powerful hero that swiftly accepted his destiny with stoicism, even as young as twelve. Her father called him Hyrule’s hope the day he brought the master sword into the castle while she spent her evening praying ‘til dawn and nothing to show for it. Her father looked at her with disappointment, her nursemaids with pity, and Link was blank and perhaps that hurt the most, that the boy she was meant to save Hyrule with one day felt nothing towards her.

She hated him. Horrible sickly words fell from her lips when he chased her through Hyrule when all she wanted was to be alone, to prove herself, to just breathe outside his shadow.

But something changed the day the Yiga caught her alone. Link held her as his hands shook, and she realized just how fragile their destinies were. 

She learned he was mute (not truly. Link feared being caught and swore to silence), and he’d never been taught sign. She once asked the captain of the guards about him. All he could say was that one day Link simply stopped speaking. And suddenly Zelda and Link poured over book after book of drawings of hand signs outside of his training and her prayers and own secret research. 

Until the day she asked why he went silent with enough sign learned between them for Link to answer fully. It wasn’t a pretty picture, the weight of the sword and expectations by her own father and king, his sargeants, his peers and the people he’d never met, all like a needle a thread through chapped lips. And she realized just how much the Rito champion’s words ate at him, how the simple raw power of the Goron made him out to be a pebble, the grace of the Zora incomparable and the Gerudo’s fierce nature difficult to match, not with a dull sword that felt imbalanced and too cold in his hands. 

There was more she learnt in Link’s final hours, when Link spoke for the first time, holding her close as she sobbed, and the voice was as soft as her late mother’s. And as Link fought off the incoming Yiga, an arrow through the calf that made Link scream high pitch, and guardian’s lasers and talons burned and tore through both cloth and flesh, Zelda learned the truth. Link told her once before that there was once a little brother lost far too young, and Zelda knew the demands of her kingdom after the first blood moon just before she was born: the declared rule that a knight must bear a son to replace them. 

Link, the woman who protected her to the very end, died in her arms. 

Twilight listened enraptured. 

“Do you see? Our records are lacking, but of our history never has there been a woman to wield the sword that seals the darkness, just as there has never been a prince bearing the sealing power, at least not that we know about. And in the end, duty dictated her actions. Even after she woke from that shrine, it was all thrown back on her the moment she found this village.”

Twilight sat beside her, the morning dew seeping into his pants and considered. “But she speaks.”

Zelda smiled. “That she does. And what a blessing to hear her laugh.” Zelda had never heard her so freely as she did that night, all nine heroes sitting around a cooking pot and chirping jabs at each other, finding serenity in each other’s company. Never had Wild looked so free. She looked to Twilight, swallowing before saying, “My opinion of her hasn’t mattered to her for a long time. We’re closer now, but I’m not connected to her in a way that matters, not outside of rebuilding efforts. But you? I saw how she looks at you and the others. If there is anyone she deserves to be her real self around, it’s you.” 

The incense had long since died out. Before them only laid stones of the lost and remembered. Not in front of any particular headstone sat a single golden crown too large to be hers, wings at each side and a ruby in its center. 

Twilight wondered how a girl of only twenty could ever retake a kingdom shattered from a hundred years of loss. Wild spoke of the years called the Age of Burning Fields, as monsters and malice swept away civilization and forced Hylians to the far corners, the luckiest protected by the remains of the four other races even after losing their own champions and branching settlements. Gerudo Town, after all, once had more outside its walls welcomed to all.

But Zelda was a reminder of very lonely years, just as Link was a reminder of Zelda’s own shortcomings. 

But Twilight and the rest of them— Wild couldn’t escape them, but more importantly, they were living examples of what she should be, aren’t they? This whole time they were reminders of her differences.

“What if it hurts her more?”

Zelda shook her head. “Or your full approval could ease her.” 

Her request was asked weeks ago, and even just miles away from the closest settlement that knew Wild as a woman, it felt wrong to approach her. No, he would wait to speak to her alone, get her comfortable with the idea and assure her that none of it mattered. She was a hero, through and throu—

Shit.

He flicked his hand before sucking the nicked finger, the knife clattering to the cutting board.

“Say, Twi, you sure you’re good?” 

From his peripheral, Wild leaned over, picking up the knife and to finish the last of the vegetables for their stew. 

He let her take over. Now wouldn’t be a good time anyway, not when they were stuck on a plateau with a giant sandfish down below, and not when the two stepping away would be too conspicuous.

But he would tell her.

* * *

Wild sometimes wondered if the reason she failed the first time was because she was never the hero. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe, and truly, her late brother should have been in her place, and the damned tree just chose his next best option, one that failed and needed second chance after second chance, waking from that shrine, bottling fairies and thanking Mipha for not leaving her. She should be dead.

And she should be dead again. Hyrule’s lands were as untamed as her own, and that was terrifying to say the least. Just when they thought they would finish against their ambushers, backed up against a mountain side, the earth rumbled and not in the manner that took their feet from under them, but rather to look up at the landslide headed straight for them.

It was a frenzy, a flurry to scatter to safe edges, even the monsters hightailing their way only for their chubby legs to doom them. They weren’t quick enough. Wild saw Legend’s hookshot shoot past her, Four in his hands. He wasn’t the only one, but when Wild looked back—

Wild spotted Sky just before the first large boulder sideswiped him, knocking him off balance, and more were on their way rolling down the mountain side. He wouldn’t make it, not if she didn’t— She didn’t even think twice, pivoting and slamming into Sky the moment he was back on his feet, and she prayed to whatever Goron gods may exist that Daruk’s protection would envelope them both. Earth fell like thunder. Whatever cries may have come from the rest were muffled by the bubble around them and the debris as she held Sky to her chest. He was still breathing, still perfectly awake. He was safe, even as the sky went dark, or rather earth packed around them on all sides, and for a moment she feared their protection wouldn’t hold.

Then it was silent, and Sky was gripping her back, breathing just as heavily. It’s okay. “Are you hurt?” 

If she could laugh she would, but at the moment she felt like she could vomit. “You’re asking me?”

“Well, whatever magic that was would take a lot of energy. You have a light?”

She shook her head, then remembered the darkness around them. “Not magic. Or not mine, anyway.” She patted her hip and thanked Hylia the slate hadn’t slipped from her side. It took only seconds to navigate and find a fire rod, and it bathed their circular space in red light. “See, all good here. You?”

“Great.” She didn’t believe him. He favored his right shoulder, avoiding moving the arm. He looked around at their small space and collapsed debris. Boulders surrounded them that would have crushed them if not for Daruk’s blessing. “I guess we’re stuck here a while. I feel like we’re just waiting for staldra to come out of the ground and eat us.”

“What’s a staldra?”

“A three headed snake thing.”

Gross, she thought. “You know, a part of me prefers not having dungeons like some of you. Technological puzzles are a bit less. . . intense.”

He snorted. “Didn’t you tell me there’s baby guardians in the shrines?”

“Yah, but they’re babies. I could fight them with my hands tied behind my back. The mama’s though?” She tapped at her cheek for emphasis, the scars nearly camouflaged in the light. “Nasty buggers.”

Suddenly it was serious, the air tense, and she inwardly scolded herself. She never told them exactly what happened to her. They all thought her merely shy of her scars.

“So was it a guardian that — that got you?” His pitch rose in the last word.

How strange, to have a serious conversation not about their predicament but something a hundred and so years old. It's not like they were going anywhere anyway. “Yup. Just wasn’t fast enough or, I don’t know. I don’t remember all of it.” She wanted to go back to the part that Sky ugly snorts, not this serious stare like he was assessing her. And why wouldn’t he? He was the original, the paver for this road they all took, and Wild skewed so far off course her Hyrule didn’t expect her to return, and it didn’t stop the Zora’s anger at the sight of her. Many still blamed her for their late princess as they should. 

“Hey, if you ever want to talk about it, I’m always here.”

“What for? It was my fault anyway.”

“And what makes you say that?” She hated how his eyebrows creased in unnecessary worry. 

Sky knew the gist of her story, knew that an injury forced her to heal for a hundred years to find the war over without her. It was the first thing she saw, even if she didn’t understand its significance at the time: Hyrule Castle had fallen, and it was because of her. “I failed. That’s it. It was my fault for not being strong enough.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true? You’ve seen my Hyrule.”

“And you’ve seen Hyrule’s own. Hylia, we’re in it right now.”

No, he didn’t understand. “But he didn’t play a part in it,”

Sky breathed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did when Wind snapped at Legend’s jabs. Then he leaned back.

“If anyone should be blamed, it’s me. I started this all. I’m the reason you’re all tied to fate, all because I wasn’t strong enough to stop Demise’s curse.”

“Sky, that’s not fair. You didn’t know.”

“And did you?”

All these damn heroes. She bit her lip and laughed. “Flipping my argument, huh?”

“No, listen, from what you’ve told me and what I’ve seen, you. . . Listen to me: you didn’t have a chance.” What horrible words, what utterly vile words that she knew the day she pulled the master sword. “Everything flipped on you, right? The champions never controlled the beast as support, the things you thought to be allies turned against you. It sounds like you had no time to prepare. So why would you blame yourself?”

Because . . . Because she deserved it. Because it was obvious that she wasn’t supposed to wield the sword, because Zelda looked at her like an enemy, and the champions pitied her Hylian strength. Mipha— dear Mipha, she deserved so much more than a sorry excuse for a hero. She deserved a whole life, and instead Wild stood alone wondering why she was the only one left. 

“What if the sword chose wrong?”

That baffled him. She saw how his eyes widened and mouth gaped. “It doesn’t choose wrong.”

“And if it did?”

He worked his jaw then reached behind him, and the familiar glide of metal from its sheath made her shiver. He held the divine sword before him, ethereal in such fire light. “If you were unworthy to hold the sword, it would burn your hand. Take it.”

She hated this. Hated how he looked at her earnestly. She wanted frustration and anger at her spitting on their supposed lineage, but instead he looked at her with something that hurt more: understanding. Maybe they weren’t so different after all.

She knew the outcome, had already wielded it once to defeat a monster that Zelda could barely force to take a physical form. But still, there was a seriousness to the motion, gripping the handle of the blade she once never let out of her sight, not until she couldn’t grip it any longer and succumbed to blood loss. 

It was cool to the touch.

“You were born for this. Don’t ever forget that.”

Wild looked at him, and he looked back with pride. 

* * *

“Say, do you think Twilight’s been acting weird?”

“How so,” she asked as she readied the stasis rune. From the other side, the team removed a majority of debris. If she hit it right with enough force, removing a single large boulder would free them safely. 

“Sounds like he’s ready to pick a fight with anyone. He got on Warrior’s case for a joke the other day. I don’t even remember what.”

“Huh, weird.”

* * *

“I swear to Hylia, don’t touch anything. Everyone, eyes on Wild.”

“For the last time I’m not a timebomb.”

Legend gave her a sour look, and she crossed her arms defiantly. “Last I remember, you just snapped your last shield, a literal golden royal guard shield.” He stepped into the house, the door unlocked and the others following close behind.

“Oh, so you wanted the molduga to eat me—” Wild paused at the sight of the inside of the little cottage. “You’re a hoarder.”

“Shut it.”

Warrior poked at the wall of swords and spears, the wall itself barely visible among the number of blades, and shelved lined the other with stacks upon stacks of scrolls. Much was just thrown in corners, stuff piling on top of already overflowing chests and tables, even the ceiling wasn’t safe. How bizarre to see a home so full, much like a storage unit at that point, but none the less lived in and filled with stories. Wild’s own sat mostly empty, the furniture picked out by someone else and really just a place to store extra Sheikah tech closer to town for Purah and Zelda. 

But maybe they weren’t so different, because Legend’s friend seemed to set up shop and stole the bed Legend very much wanted to dive straight into. Ravio was jittery like Wind and snarky just like Legend if not kinder in his jabs. Yet who knew from just one look he knew exactly what she was, because the first time Wild was alone, the rest taking to the town and others hunting, Legend scolding Warrior just outside for wanting to test out a cursed object, Ravio asked her if she needed a new one.

“New what?”

“Binder? You’re acting like it’s rubbing wrong. Don’t tell me, you need rash cream, too?”

And her heart jumped to her throat, her blood cold and limbs numb and a terrible record of _never tell anyone_ playing over and over that her temples throbbed and ears pounded. And yet, Ravio only cocked his head at the kitchen table, a plethora of wraps already set out in varying colors and materials. 

Then it dawned on him. “They don’t know.”

It felt like a century to find the courage to shake her head, but he only responded with, “It’s okay, I won’t tell. Tell ya what, since your Legend’s friend, you get the hero’s discount.” He was smiling at her, and she couldn’t understand why. “C’mon. I’ll put it all away as soon as you pick one. You looked uncomfortable since you got here.”

Why? She looked at the array on the table and the boy’s casual nature. Why isn’t he upset? She was a fraud, but before him were tools to keep up the façade. “Why are you doing this?”

Ravio shrugged. “I’m a merchant. And not everyone feels that their bodies match their minds. Can’t say I like gender all that much myself.”

What an interesting thought, one she hadn’t necessarily considered or thought possible, to not want to be like their body outside of the duty she swore to. Because she loved how others felt safe around her, loved how she could joke and be obnoxious in a way that she would have been scolded from before, but that’s not about gender. That’s merely freedom of judgement. But the fact she’s been called boy and man hasn’t bothered her, has never, and once stood in the mirror wondering the possibility of being more than just a woman and duty and maybe just . . . . Hmm. Maybe they were making this a bigger deal than it actually was. She still wouldn’t deny entering Gerudo Town had its own freedoms. 

It was odd and satisfying, to walk around without a binder and shirt not buttoned to her neck after feeling like she would fall from heatstroke but instead get to shop for vai clothes and jewelry, to show her pale yet scarred stomach in Gerudo garb and accept compliments with rosy cheeks only to buy a circlet for more than just its magical properties. She was happy. She felt detached to her responsibilities and looming threat of Ganon. But would she say she belonged? Maybe. She felt natural around the fierce Gerudo that didn’t pull punches, but she remembered the awkwardness she felt when Hylian vai spoke to her. Did she belong among them? Maybe it’d been too long, experienced too much, to be exactly a woman. But she felt a connection to Riju, did she not? Her story was unique, for sure. 

So many thoughts swirling in her (maybe their) head that didn’t match her body or the clothes she wore while others did. What kind of hero had such ridiculous turmoil? 

But Ravio waited patiently, letting her pull one of the binders from a stack so unlike her own, dark in color and soft yet firm. It wasn’t frayed or creased like the one currently bound around her torso. Rather it looked more like a tight undershirt with smooth seams.

“Good choice. Notice how thin it is? It’ll be more breathable, so you won’t be so hot but still pretty tough. Heck, you could climb a mountain in that, no problem. That, and maybe a stronger one especially for combat wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

He was so helpful, so nice over something Wild had been so ashamed of before Calamity put her in that tomb. 

“So hey, why don’t you go try them on, I’ll put the rest of these out of sight, and we’ll talk payment at another time. Sound fair?”

She wondered if Ravio was even real. Ravio threw in an ointment of sorts and a type of cool compress to deal with the rash. And in the quiet of Legend’s room, the floor littered with bedrolls and trophies from the boy’s own adventure, Wild stood before a mirror with her scars raw where the old binder rubbed worse. It wouldn’t have gotten to the point if she could just take it off for a few hours, let the skin breathe and rest clean of sweat, but bathing depended on being able to get away long and far enough. There had been enough jokes about hygiene as the “wild child.”

She didn’t mean to lay down on the bed, just breathing fully and letting the ointment cool. It’s quiet but in a way like the woods of her Hyrule. The house itself is cozy, a fire blazing downstairs tended by Ravio and she should probably think about making lunch, but it felt nice to sit still. 

Until a snout huffed and poked at the bottom of the bedroom door, clawed feet softly scratching on the floor like it could dig its way to her. She sighed, sitting up and picking out the first binder, the one more like a cropped shirt than what she wore before. It was tight, pulling it on felt like wrangling a snake or when she tried to reach into a rabbit burrow inside a fallen tree trunk because one of the little buggers stole her korok seed. 

But then it was on and she stood in front of the mirror. 

And nothing about it hurt. 

It didn’t take her breath. It didn’t hurt her ribs or refuse to bend as she shifted and didn’t rub in her twists. 

This was what they were missing out on?

The wolf whined at the door and suddenly she was in front of it, cracking it open just enough to let the canine enter just to bend down and hold it like a lifeline as it licked her face and salty tears running down her cheeks. 

Twilight didn’t understand why they were hurting so much, why Ravio was starting lunch for everyone on his own or why Wild hadn’t been in sight, not until he stood before them and saw the painful smile across their face in just pants and a half top that hid their secret. Did it pain them that much? To hide it from the rest of them? He smelt the medicated salves on their body. Were they hurting? 

Why can’t they just tell the rest of them the truth? He couldn’t confront them now, not when they’re so vulnerable, and Wolfie just a third party for comfort and not the man that sometimes called them cub. 

* * *

It was weeks of tension that Wild couldn’t trace. Something felt off among their group, and the others were noticing, too. At first she thought herself simply imagining it. But with Sky’s confirmation, things became a little more obvious. There was something amidst. 

She wondered if it was because of her, that maybe it was because of the swing by a moblin that sent her flying the day before created unnecessary worry, or a story too many, too detailed, set them off. Whatever it was, she wasn’t privy to it. 

Then it became obvious. 

Twilight. 

Not at first, anyway.

Offering to help in places unneeded. Tended to protect her back. Rose to her defense when she was in the wrong. 

Did he think her that weak? 

“Lay off. Give ‘im a break.” 

It wasn’t even anything serious, just a remark of her cutting it too close. She would do better. This was stupid. 

She sighed, crossing her arms in front of Legend who originally scolded her. “It’s fine. I had it under control.”

“If that’s control, then I don’t wanna know what isn’t.” He said it in jest, she knew that, they all knew that. Legend just had a bark that wasn’t pleasant to hear, but it was nothing new. 

But then Twilight stood between them, his back to her, sizing up Legend. “I said lay off.”

What in Dinraal’s name? It pissed her off. “Knock it off, Twi. You’re being weird.” 

“But you said it yourself. You knew what you were doing.”

Hylia, shut up. Stop making this more awkward. “And I don’t need you defending my honor. Just—” She groaned, pressing her palms over her eyes. “I’m going hunting.” She didn’t wait for a response, simply strapping a bow to her back and heading out from whatever Hyrule they ended up in this morning. Did he really not think she was capable? What tipped him off like that? Wild could handle herself, did handle herself, resolved her own adventure and not even with a fully working mind at that. If he really wanted to baby her, he had another thing coming. 

She wandered aimlessly, frustratingly, because maybe he was right. 

After all, he managed to sneak up on her.

“Wild.”

And rather than startling, she turned on him. “What was that?”

It forced him to pause and look at her like she kicked him. “He was being an ass to you.”

“The same amount of assness as he is to everyone else. Why are you defending me like I’m— like I’m glass?!” Her voice jumped in volume, because of all the people in their group, she thought he saw her as an equal. 

“That’s not— Wild, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

And that made her freeze. This was where he called her failure and weak and unable to keep up or be trusted. Maybe he knew she wasn’t a real hero. “I don’t want to hear it.” She started walking.

“Wild, stop.”

She didn’t. She had game to catch. She had elixirs to prep because she had a role in the group. She wasn’t an invalid. 

“Wild, I know.” 

_Wild, I know_ . The words rang loud and clear. She faltered in her pace, looking back to ask just what, but it was obvious on his face. _He knew_. He knew her fraud. 

“You don’t have to— Hey, wait!” 

She hadn’t even consciously made the decision. Suddenly, he feet carried her rapidly, sprinting, blood pumping in her ears, her chest too tight, oh so tight that her breaths were too short and had nothing to do with Ravio’s binder. He knew she wasn’t supposed to be here, not really. Her whole fucking ruse would be over, dumping her off to be someone else’s problem, because who wanted a fuck up that doomed their Hyrule? That shouldn’t have ever held the sword but did because her brother didn’t make it? It was a scam. She was a scam. 

And Twilight knew. 

All those times he’d jumped in front of her to take a hit, every time he came to her defense when the group got heated— was it that obvious? That she was just a stupid girl way in over her head—

Her thoughts were faster than her feet, but that didn’t mean she saw the club before it made contact with her temple. She went down like a doll, legs suddenly useless, and Wild could hear the grotesque snorts of excited beast at their caught meal. Bokoblins and Lizalfos, an obscurely large moblin, but none fit a single Hyrule. She saw lizalfos of both hers and Time’s era, and the moblin fitting for Wind’s Hyrule. Something was wrong. 

She barrel rolled before the spear from a lizalfos could pierce her chest, jumping to her feet and stepping back from wild swings and jumping left and right from bokoblin spears. 

“Wild!”

She didn’t pause when Twilight joined her, taking her back and she the same. The slate procured a shield just in time to parry a lizalfos’ swipe. It was like time didn’t exist, as the two fought off their share of monsters, and it was grueling to dwindle their numbers. Her fire rod made an appearance, and Twilight’s hookshot gave him leverage in the towering forest. 

But nothing struck fear into her heart more than to hear Twilight’s cry of her name. She twisted, blocking the bokoblin’s club, but it left her back open, and she thought she could hear the moblin’s satisfied growl. She braced for the attack just as a blur of dark fur jumped past her, and the moblin squealed. Wild made quick work of the bokoblin only to turn to the dark wolf at the monster’s jugular. Black blood pooled out, coated the wolf’s muzzle, and spinning on her heel, she realized something that left her numb:

Twilight had disappeared and what stood before her was a fiercely loyal wolf, it had run from the direction Twilight had been fighting, and Wolfie was the one she held to her chest the day Ravio gave her the new binder. Wolfie was the one to collect her from beside the pond when she was underdressed. He watched her break down in sobs, a hero cry over a stupid chest binder in a bedroom.

Twilight and Wolfie were one and the same.

The shock left her vulnerable, failing to hear the excited snorts of the lizalfos, not until it’s spear pierced her stomach through her back and the wolf barked like mad, launching behind her to stop her attacker. But it was too late. Her knees buckled, the spear still in place as she pitched forward, and the world swirled in more than just her dazed state. The ground glowed. They were shifting to another Hyrule, the portal beneath her just like it had the one time she tried to run away from them, thinking it best to get out before their little stunt of heroism broke them apart anyway. There’d been so much in fighting, but that didn’t matter now.

The grass wet with her blood shifted to simply soaked with rain, and Wolfie/Twilight howled in pain, a cry for help they all knew. They would come running and they would all know.

Twilight was pressing on the wound without removing the spear. The spear had to go. Mipha could fix it easy. Just. Remove the . . . the spear. 

Twilight begged her to stay awake as her world turned dark. As more shouts mumbled with his, she wondered if she would wake to all of them gone.

Pulling the sword had only put a spotlight on a snail. It did not change it, didn’t make it less brittle, and a misplaced boot could still easily crack its shell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Wild's pronouns change and does question their gender for a short period of time. Twilight also debates on what pronouns to use. Wild has rashes from the poor quality and style of binder and becomes emotional about it but Twilight interprets it as crying over having to hide their gender. Wild has panic attack like symptoms and multiple times degrades themselves feeling inadequate beyond just their gender, but it is a lynch pin to the argument. However, the focus is meant to be a case of imposter syndrome.
> 
> So I decided to make a third part because this was getting too long. Thanks everyone for reading so far, and please let me know if there are any concerns. I would also like to say I've only played BOTW and am right now playing Link's Awakening, so everything else is a bit of digging in the wiki or the few Game Grump episodes I've seen. Bear with me. 
> 
> Up next: the team reveal.


	3. Who Gets To Decide?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I included a content warning at the end for anyone concerned.
> 
> And thank you for reading!

The world shifted suddenly, and Time clutched his stomach as their campfire and clearing they had set up in dissipated to be replaced with tiled floor. The others groaned around him as he picked up his sword and readied for any enemies that would take advantage of their disoriented state, but rather he realized they were on a long bridge, water swirling beneath them. 

“Hey, are you guys okay!?”

That’s when he spotted them, Zora not like his own and more colorful, taking on deep blues and red, variants in between. They held spears but did not intend to attack. Then it struck him: Wild’s Zora. They’d seen one once on the road as they travelled aimlessly in search of black blooded monsters. 

One of the guards approached asking, “Are you friends of Link’s? You travel like Link.” 

Warrior, still hunched over, never having done well in the transfer from land to land, gave a thumbs up. “We sure are. Have you seen him?”

The Zoran guards looked to each other. “No, he’s been gone for many months.”

“So that means,” Four started, getting off of Legend who held his side thanks to Four’s boney elbows, “They got transported separately.”

“Hey, did you hear that?” 

They went silent just as the second cry rang out, a pained wolf howl they’d come to recognize. Wind jumped to his feat. “Wolfie must have found them!” 

Time turned to the Zora just as the others sprinted down the bridge. “Guard, prepare for injured. We will return once we find Link.” 

They’re gone quickly.

* * *

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, Wild.” There’s blood and a gut wrenching feeling in his stomach. “Stay awake for me, okay? No, no, don’t do that.” 

“What happened?!”

It was Legend, his pegasus boots carrying him faster, but the others weren’t too far behind. He slid down next to Twilight with his hands digging through his bag. 

“Monsters. I couldn’t— I tried to warn—”

Fingers to Wild’s neck, he shut him up. “Focus.” Still breathing. He recognized the type of spear as one of his bokoblins. Not poisonous. Wild laid on his stomach unconscious, the spear went through his lower back, not lungs, but sensitive organs still. No fairies, but he had a jar of incredible salve. “Twi, I need you to pull out the spear when I say to.”

“Legend, no.” His voice wobbled. His hands were covered in blood, his fur pelt he removed to press on the edges of the wound soaking it with blood. It seeped into the damp grass. 

“Hyrule is right behind us. Move your hands. I need to see what I’m working with.” He shoved the fur pelt away, gripping the torn pieces of Wild’s tunic and pulled—

“Legend, don’t!”

The blue fabric tore away easily, same with the undershirt, revealing the entry wound and something more. He recognized its shape and form instantly. 

Not now.

“Twilight, listen to me.” He uncapped the jar’s lid, a thick mucus like cream inside that he scooped with his fingers. “This will close the wound, but we won’t be out of the woods. But it’s only going to help if you pull your weight, got it?”

_ Fuck you _ , he wanted to say, but his mind was racing with horrible thoughts of their coming future. He nodded, hands shaking when Legend told him to grip the spear. 

“Ready? Three, two,” Legend counted down, Twilight’s fingers numb, “one!” 

He pulled as Wild screamed and Legend’s fingers forced their putrid smelling cream into the pooling wound. Twilight’s bloody fingers tried to card through her hair to soothe such agony, her eyes blown open and staring at nothing when he tried to catch her eye, still pressed on her stomach. The pelt pressed back over.

This was his fault, wasn’t it? This wouldn’t be happening if he just—

Running on instinct, he twisted with his sword raised for the approaching party, only to find Wild’s salvation. She would be okay. She— He looked to Wild’s shivering exposed torso and the black binder and the blood on his hands. 

Hyrule’s hands were glowing before even reaching her, bathing the wound and salve in warm light, and Wild’s choked whines and gasp eased back into unconscious breaths. There’s too many speaking, suddenly, Wind demanding to know what happened, and Warrior trying to direct while Legend did the same, and Time spoke of friendly Zora to heal Wild further, Four wanted to know what was on Wild as Sky eased her onto his back, jostling her too much but moving too slow. 

Their climb to this Domain was too slow. He could feel her soft breaths of air on his back, his pelt forgotten.

It was his fault. 

* * *

The Zora recognized the Hylian champion instantly, and before anyone could refute, Wild was ushered to the infirmary and the rest barred. The Zora said any friend of a Link’s was a friend of there’s, that the prince would greet them soon and rooms were given easily. It’s where most of them huddled, unsure of what to say. Warrior didn’t like Twilight’s blank stare at his bloodied hands, nor the black blood poorly wiped from his mouth drying down his chin, and pulled him away. 

Hyrule curled up in one of the beds exhausted, but the memory of sickening churned skin from old but horrible, horrible, scars made him feel sick. That’s what he hid from them, bleeding from his cheek, through his torso and extending further and always hidden underneath a multitude of layers. He wondered if they were sensitive, to heat or the cold, to saltwater— that Zoran wet suit hid every scar. 

“You think that’s why he wears a chest binder?” It takes a moment to realize the question came from Four. “That whatever did that caused some lasting problems?”

From the other side of the small room, sitting against the bed’s leg and counting his elixirs and salves. “It’s like you were all born in a cave and never left.” 

Hyrule ignored the jab while Four stood up despite Wind’s grip on his sleeve. “Then what was that? Sorry, not everyone gets in a new adventure before breakfast.”

A second hand pulled on Four’s arm. Time. “Calm down. Wild can explain himself later. Right now, clean up and stock up. Wild will wake soon.”

Meanwhile, Twilight’s fingers shook violently to loosen the gloves and bracers, and he didn’t look at Warrior when he took his arm to do it for him, the gesture too kind for almost getting one of their own killed.

“I’m not bathing you, man. That’s on you.”

In the small bathhouse, humid and sweet smelling from oils, Twilight’s skin felt sickly, dry and crusted with blood. “How the fuck are you joking right now?”

“Because Wild’s going to be fine. He always is.”

No, he didn’t get it. He didn’t know that utter look of betrayal on her face at his own truth and the knowledge he withheld about her, that all his fears of her suffering alone only became worse. 

“This is stupid.” There’s a bubble of hatred (at who?) in his chest, and before he knew it, he was trying to pull back on the bracers and shoving past Warrior and out of the bathhouse. 

“Hey!” A hand gripped his arm. “Your mouth is covered in black. Did you lose it? Did something happen out there?”

Be bristled, his hairs standing straight. They thought him fucking feral? He’d show them, it wasn’t like he would be able to hide it for much longer anyway. Warrior let go of his wrist/paw the second he shifted, both Wild’s and the monster’s blood hidden in his fur. He wondered if it was obvious now: the markings across his face and the eye color, the fact the two have never met, and he thought maybe Warrior realized all the times the wolf growled at him for reasons unapparent.

Warrior squinted at him. “You dick.” 

The beast growled back before turning away. His legs carried him meaninglessly, but at least it was away from people he couldn’t explain himself to, not without hurting Wild more.

* * *

Wild’s head was pounding, likely a concussion that she’d ignored through the adrenaline. There’s nothing but a dull ache, and while her limbs felt heavy, brushing her fingertips against her torso found gauze. Seconds of demanding herself, her eyes fluttered open to familiar blue tiles and the smell of algae and sea. 

“There you are, Link.”

Familiar and homely. In time she grew more alert and turned her head to the Zora at her bedside. At first glance he can be terrifying, with rows of teeth and sharp eyes, his size towering and would only tower more with age. But Sidon was Sidon, which was a bit of a doofus filled with impeccable optimism. 

“You gave your friends quite a scare. And me too coming here like that.”

She didn’t blame him. The memory was dulled but she knew the pain was enough to make her scream.

Then things started to click. Not instantly, there’s a gap somewhere, before she screamed, but then voices, too many, and there’s gauze around her stomach, edges just at the binder. 

They knew. 

Sidon knee too. Too slow, she brought her arms over her chest as if to hide her shame, as if there was anyway to rectify what they’d all seen, but Sidon just looked at her sadly. She hated those looks. 

“Link.” Don’t say it. She already knew. She already fucked up enough, got his own sister killed, barely survived Vah Ruta, and then she turned out to be no one but a fraud, a liar. The hero of a hundred years ago was a stupid boy killed before becoming a man. She just wore the clothes. “I’ve known.”

Wild paused. She stared at him. 

“I knew you were born female.” Sidon sat in a chair next to her bed, beside him was a bowl that once held ice chips and the rag placed on her forehead that long since warmed. “My sister once told me she’d fallen for a Hylian. I was so young at the time, she told me in secret for fear of her destiny as a champion, as a Zora princess. You know in our culture Zoran betroth through making armor for the other, usually bracers or something of the like. But her love was a Hylian, so a full suit was made to protect them in rapids and swim against pounding waterfalls. And even after a hundred years from her death, I kept it, and I always thought how strange it was that there was so much padding in the torso, as if to hide their chest.” He smiled, knowing what was to come next. “Then one day a Hylian champion of the past walks in, dawns the betrothal armor and it fits perfectly.” She remembered that day well. A Zora of incredible size greeted her with full teeth and a cheeriness she wasn’t used to. How strange that the tiny guppy that used to trip on his own tail would become one of her closest allies. “I don’t know why he hid it, but at least he feels comfortable enough to seek refuge here. That is, I guess, until your new journey started,” he joked. “I haven’t seen you in many months.” His smile was warm, just as it always is, and for a moment she could see the Mipha in him. 

He always knew. “I thought. Sidon, I thought no one. . .” 

“I’m sorry if you felt alone. I thought it would make you uncomfortable or bring up something you’d moved on from.” Considerate. Always considerate. He would make a great king one day. “Remind me, what do you prefer to be called?”

This was more than she ever thought would be possible. Sidon, the new champion for the Zora and Pilot of Vah Ruta, didn’t spite her, scold or denounce her. He respected her title, always has, and he was asking her a question she’d spent too many nights asking herself since the day Ravio voiced something beyond duty but rather a choice for the self, a very possible choice for the self.

“I think for now I will present as a man.” His acceptance was only one of thousands of beings across Hyrule that looked up to her and the legend she stood for. “But in private, . . . Would you please use ‘she?’” It was a demand equivalent to the weight of Calamity, leaving her bare and raw, vulnerable much like those first hours awake from that shrine. 

He never stopped smiling when he took her hand. “Of course.”

It occurred to her that the Zora’s open design to their land, no doors to speak of, though curtains when necessary, left her words and being vulnerable to anyone out in the hallway, and the whine and soft click of canine feet on the tiled floor were a dead give away to who had heard her confession. She looked away from Sidon and saw the wolf standing in the doorway.

“Ah, is it one of your companions?” asked Sidon, protectively placing an over in front of Wild in case it lunged.

She groaned. “If you’re gonna do this, at least look me in the eye.”

And in seconds, it shifted into a man, and Sidon relaxed, his smile back.

“Sidon, meet Twilight. Twi, Sidon, prince of the Zora Domain.” She added the title as a warning. “And he knows.” 

That made him blink. “Was it because of me—?”

“No. What’d everyone else say?” She spoke lowly, monotone to control the emotion trying to bubble over. “What’s the verdict?” It was a growing awareness that soon Wild would have to face them again, and their looks would vary, but ultimately she would never be one of them. 

“No, I don’t think they knew what it was.”

She blinked. Huh? 

“I mean Four thought it was medical, like a compression. But Legend knows.” Legend made sense. Ravio and him were close, weren’t they? Or at least it wouldn’t be strange for Legend to recognize an item from Ravio’s stock. “But Wild, you should know they aren’t going to look at you differently.”

She snorted. 

“Yah, they need some getting used to, but we all care about you, okay?”

“You don’t get it.”

He huffed, annoyed. “What do I not get?”

Hylia, she hated this. Sidon squeezed her hand, still present, and she was thankful he hadn’t excused himself. “I’m not one of you.”

Wild watched as his eyes widened, then his brows furrowed and she easily read the anger on his face. It was a look he gave Warrior many times. “Why would you even think that? Why would they just turn their backs on you? You really think all these months haven’t mattered?” He breathed, his voice lowering back to something desperate, taking a step forward. “Wild, I was— I was so worried that you were in pain. That you hated yourself and you didn’t trust us. And I thought you’d bolt the second . . . you did bolt.” He worked his jaw, mulling his words and acknowledged the third party in the room. “But I was worried you would hurt yourself.”

That. That confession left her numb. But maybe, maybe she could understand where he was coming from, refusing to even shed a layer of clothing around them, the blast that took up half her body, and the day she cried gripping the wolf with rashes peeking out of the new binder. That was. . . considerate. However, “like glass,” she said.

“I wasn’t trying to.” Twilight sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “It was just with knowing what I knew, or thinking I knew, I just didn’t want you to feel pressured, or feel like no one was on your side, or didn’t fit in because someone took a joke too far.” He didn’t look away from her, slightly bowing his head. “I’m sorry.” 

Sidon squeezed her hand and she gave him a look. He only nudged his head towards Twilight, urging her. Wild breathed deeply and thought. It made more sense, the way he acted. Not glass, but chinked armor. No, he knew she could fight and hold her own. Wild may not have met them, but Twilight once spoke of a Zelda that rode into battle against a Gerudo formed Ganon, of a princess of twilight that scared him as much as she annoyed him. It wasn’t about being a woman, not really. But she looked to him and knew his fatal flaw so parallel to his counterform: loyalty. Loyalty was everything to him, and learning she kept such a secret, one that disrupted her to even have decent hygiene— that lack of trust must have ate at him everytime he looked at her, unsure of what action to take that kept her from booking it or feeling like an outlier. She exhaled.

“Thank you.”

He nodded. 

“That wasn’t exactly why I said that.” She said it simply even as he gritted his teeth.

“You’re one of us.”

She became painfully aware of the bandages around her torso and the pressure of the binder. “I’m not. My name isn’t even Link.”

His eyes widened, and Sidon’s grip loosened in similar amaze. That was the issue, wasn’t it? It all came down to the fact she was nothing more than an imposter. 

“Stop that,” warned Twilight. “I don’t care if your last name is Ganondorf. You’ve proved yourself over and over. Where would Sky be right now if you didn’t protect him from that landslide? Or when Time decided he could take on a Wallmaster with a fever?” He walked towards her bed even as Sidon stood. “That molduga would have hunted us all down if not for you. Hylia’s dragged you through every portal, and I’m glad for it. I wouldn’t want anyone else on this journey with us.” Then he was in front of her, looking at her covered in bandages and binder on full display, but his eyes never left hers. What he saw wasn’t a man or woman or hero or fraud. He saw Wild, a name with only meaning to eight beings. She hated how much she’s cried since meeting them all, because again her eyes stung and this time she wasn’t gripping the fur of a wolf that couldn’t understand her, but the tunic of someone she thought of like a brother. How strange that in losing one she would one day gain eight. 

She needed to tell them. She wanted to tell them. And she would accept whatever they said or thought of her.

When her breath had calmed, Twilight cleared his throat, releasing her. “I wasn’t sure when to ask, but now is better than never. I’ve been thinking that I don’t entirely know what you wish to be called.” Twice in the same day, she thought to herself. Twice that the people around her gave her the chance to be something else. 

“There’s no easy answer. I think . . . for now, just use what you have been.” It’s not perfect, but Wild couldn’t deny that while among them all, she/he felt more attuned as a man. But that could be saved for when they were all here. “Hey, Twi, you should go clean up.” Wild tapped at his chin. “You got a little something right here.”

Then he was sputtering, wiping at the blood like ink still on his chin that made him look like a madman. “Right.”

“And when you’re done, you wanna come back here and we’ll go see everyone?” Best to bite the arrowhead now while there was still time for Wild to come out on their own. 

She saw how he eyed Sidon, but in the end he nodded. “Back in ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes.” Then he was gone.

Sidon, who had moved for their emotional moment, appeared with clean clothes, loose and meant for the sick, and a dark robe to protect from the humid air of the domain. But rather than put on the dark cotton shirt, she simply switched into the clean pants and tied the robe around her waist, the hem of the binder exposed.

“Are you sure,” he asked Wild.

“I am.”

* * *

Twilight found Warrior in front of a statue. It stood tall in the center of the domain, a Zora armed with a trident. Twilight remembered a tale one night during a grueling climb up a mountainside with Wild by his side about champions and pilots of great beast. After the hell of the past hours worrying about Wild, he had time to wonder if the statue’s likeness had once known Wild, when he was just Link and silent. Warrior barely batted an eye at his reappearance, freshly clean and wearing a robe offered by the Zora for Hylian visitors. It’s outermost layer was a strange fiber that repelled water well. 

When Twilight came to stand next to him, he scoffed. “That’s a pretty big secret.” 

“I know.” Everything about Warrior came off as pissed. Arms crossed, back too straight, too tense, and eyes that wouldn’t look at him. “I couldn’t tell you without hurting someone else.”

Warrior looked unamused, but at least he actually looked to Twilight.

“C’mon. Wild’s got something to say.”

“I’m still pissed at you.”

“I know. I’m going to tell everyone, break the ice for Wild.”

“And what does Wild have to do with anything?”

Twilight ignored him, walking off towards the infirmary. “Meet up in our room.”

Stupid Twilight and his dumb secret keeping. If he had a rupee for every headache brought on by Twi, he’d be retired on his own island.

“Oi, you can thank me later for remembering your pelt.” Twilight paused for only a second before taking the stairs two at a time. “And it’s washed!” Warrior sighed, heading towards their shared room and nudging along Wind and Hyrule when he spotted them in the market. 

* * *

The walk was silent with Sidon by her side, Twilight on the other. Each were a part of her history, the Zora her past and the Hylian his present. And it was strange to imagine that each knew Wild’s struggle as a hero and accepted them nonetheless. She could do this. No matter how much her feet wished to carry her to the far reaches of Hebra where they would never find her, Wild felt that she owed them all the truth, though it strange and could change the group’s dynamic forever. 

When they stood in the hall just outside the room, all eyes turned to them. Warrior must have given them a heads up, as Legend’s things were put away, whetstones abandoned and each more or less having been doing nothing but talking quietly before their arrival. 

“Greeting!” Always Sidon to ignore the awkward energy of a room. “I have yet to have the pleasure. Sidon, a friend of your Link’s.”

“The prince,” added Wild, and that got many of them to nod and share their own greetings. Time thanked him for his hospitality and others complimented the domain’s architecture. Meanwhile, Twilight guided her to the bed occupied by Hyrule, the boy sitting up with his feet dangling off the side. She followed suit, and he smiled. In a quiet whisper he asked, “How are you feeling?”

And to be honest? “Really good.” This would be a hard talk, but she wouldn’t deny that her shoulders felt lighter. Twilight said they would accept her, or at least wouldn’t leave her, and she wanted to believe him.

Sky moved from his spot at the foot of Four’s bed to sit beside her feet, leaning against the bed and looking up at her. “Would you mind not scaring us half to death for just one week?”

She snorted. “Not likely. But hey,” she said a bit louder. “If you all don’t mind, I kind of have something to tell you?”

“So do I,” said Twilight, having taken to leaning against the wall. 

Sidon looked to her, waiting for her decision. He would stay if she wanted, and as much as she wished he would, she knew this was about the group. She shook her head and smiled. He bid his farewells and reminded her of where to find him before taking his leave. 

Then there were nine, nine beings that shared the same campfire, sometimes swords and arrows and always food. They shared scars both physical and mental, and Wild couldn’t think of a group more incredible, and she was honored to have been a part of. No matter what happened, she would cherish the time she had with them. 

Twilight spoke first. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.” Though Warrior huffed annoyingly, he continued staring back not with animosity, but like he needed the soldier to understand. “I didn't want to tell the truth at first because of its origins. On my quest, I was cursed. . . The woman who raised me didn’t even recognize me. But,” he said, looking at Time, and Wild realized she was not the only one who knew. “With the Master Sword, I learnt to control it. So, let me just show you.” 

It was silent as shadows overtook him, but that silence only lasted until four paws clicked on the tiled floor. 

Wind was the loudest. “Whhhaaaaatt??!!” 

“So this whole time—“

“I gave you my leftovers because I thought you were starving!”

It was chaos for only seconds, then Time stood up. “I knew. Do not forget that without this form and his ability to track, we would have walked past entire towns and straight into monster camps.”

That quieted them. “Still,” started Sky, “I wish you felt comfortable to tell us. Sorry if we didn’t come off as the accepting type.” 

Speaking of accepting type, Twilight stared at her, waiting. She blinked. “Twilight couldn’t tell you even if he wanted to. Not without. . . Not without me having a freak out.”

“Why?” asked Warrior. The tension in his shoulders had died down but still present. 

“Because I had a secret of my own.” This was it, wasn’t it?”

“Four’s eyes trailed down to the binder peeking out from her robe. “Is it your injury?” More eyes followed, and she felt the spotlight on her brittle snail shell. “My grandfather— when he became sick, he wore one similarly. Helps with his blood pressure.” 

She shook her head. So many eyes on her, but Twilight nodded encouragingly. Hyrule sat beside her, leaning slightly to brush shoulders without crowding her. “I have a story to tell.” She looked to Wind and thought not of the little girl waiting for him to come home, too young for adventure, too young to experience tragedy and duty, but rather looked to Wind and wondered if he was what her brother would have looked like.“When I was born, my name was Aryll.” She watched as sudden understanding flooded his face, why Wild struggled to stay in that house on Outset. And for the rest, the feminine name was the last puzzle piece fitting into place. 

“When I was nine, my mother was pregnant with my brother, but both didn’t make it. She was going to name him Link.” Oh, how vivid those memories had been the moment she saw that abandoned home in Hateno, what she used mostly as storage holding more ghosts than artifacts and weapons. Nothing was the same when she bought it off Bolson, the bowls and cups replaced, the furniture and curtains newer— but stepping into the threshold was like stepping directly into a memory. The nook under the stairs used for storage once had a curtain to block it off to be her room, though with her father gone so long, she often slept beside her mother upstairs, the same mother that spent so many nights scrawling in notebooks by candlelight. Those had been replaced too with classic novels Wild never opened. She remembered waking to finish chores of milking the dairy cow, grooming mom’s horse, then from the afternoon to nightfall, she wandered far past the town shops, past the crop fields and safety of her mother’s eye down to the lake to search for frogs, to sneak into the forest and say hello to the koroks. They were funny little leaf people that gave her gifts in nuts and seeds and guided her through the forest away from lurking monsters. They once told her the story of a hero meant to be born.

And that’s where her life changed forever, isn’t it? Just a few sentences left her stripped like a plucked cucco still writhing alive under their stares and dawning realizations of what it all meant. From his place, Twilight watched them cautiously, waiting for animosity.

“But you pulled the sword?” Sky asked. He sat closest to her, leaning against her bed, his shoulder beside her dangling legs. Usually he leaned into whoever was closest, never one to shy away from affection. But he didn’t look at her like she was foreign, only with a request to scoot closer she hadn’t expected from what she just told him. Or maybe she did. Despite if she had told him she caused Ganon’s resurrection, she thought he would still offer comfort. She nudged him with her foot and he moved to lean against her. 

“I did. . . In my Hyrule, after the Blood Moon’s started— uh, they’re sporadic but were worse when Calamity Ganon still existed. They resurrect a varying number of monsters, like a reset of months of work. When they started, the king required every soldier to have a replacement ready for him, as in a son. Then said sons would be expected to try to find and pull the sword hidden in the Lost Woods.” Wild child, the tree had called her when she pulled the sword that weighed thousands of millennia of history packed into a blade that did not thrum with life like it did for Sky. “So I became a soldier, and when I entered the forest, the Deku Tree spoke to me.” She became a soldier so her father would one day be able to rest, to die in a warm home rather than on the battlefield or from training overworking his heart. She searched for any possible record that he may have survived. For all she knew, he died in the fields of Fort Hateno. 

But that isn’t the end of her story, no. They’d seen her scars that tinged her skin in pinks and pushed it strangely in grotesque patterns, the mark of a failure. “But it wasn’t enough. The sword . . .” This was it. She brushed her fingers over her palms, felt the callouses from years of training, hours upon hours per day to be the hero Hyrule needed all for naught. “I may be able to wield it, but not to its full potential. It’s dull, lifeless and silent.” Revali knew it, threw it in her face every moment he could. “I was not meant to be its wielder, and that is why I failed.”

Four remembered in too much detail a conversation held up on a watchtower of outset.

_ “Do you ever think about what. . . What you would be if the sword never chose you?” _

What felt worse: To be chosen by the sword or to be its reluctant second against a threat, having no chance? Those scars—

Wild once asked Sky if the sword could choose wrong.

“When the Calamity struck, I didn’t even make it to the castle. You know the rest.” The Shrine of Resurrection, Zelda’s hundred year war with Ganon as Wild slept, healed, and forgot her purpose, her duty. 

“Not exactly.” The words were hushed but felt like shouting against her truths. Sky looked to her, his face grim as he said, “I haven’t been to talk to you, but after that day when we spoke, while we were trapped beneath the rock, Fi told me something.” She frowned as he became conscious of himself. “I wondered why the Master Sword seemed so different in each of our hands. With me, she speaks so freely, but with everyone else? I can’t hear her, and the others haven’t been able to either.” A quick look around the room confirmed that. “But it’s more than that. I feel her presence, and when you held her, it was like she wasn’t even there. We had a working theory together. Her memory is difficult, but held in each of our hands ages her to that time, and you, you are the most distant in time. A time where the master sword had been used again and again and never reincarnated like your bodies. It’s dozens of thousands of fights on a sword against more than just Demise or a single Gerudo. It’s seen war, and you used it to defeat something your Zelda struggle to force into even a physical form.” Even now, with the sword set before his feet, not touching him, but existing in her time, in her Hyrule, it looked dull. “By the time it has reached you, its essence is just a candle flame. I yelled at you once for it shattering.” 

She remembered that day well. Sky had dropped it in a fight, and she’d taken it swiftly, striking the guardian’s legs then plunging it into the machine’s eye, only for the sword to shimmer unnaturally until it dissipated all together. And the tangent that followed scared her half to death until it reformed on Sky’s back. 

“But the sword’s energy is so low, it needs rest almost constantly. It rested for a hundred years and still acts as if a gust of wind could put it out, not like the raging wildfire I know it as.” He breathed deeply, and she wanted it to stop, because the words would hurt him more than it would heal her. “Wild, it was never your fault.” Emotion bubbled over her, spewing in sobs. “In your hour of need, the sword failed you.”

She broke down as careful arms wrapped around her. It wasn’t her. Another leaned against her legs. It wasn’t her fault. She died thinking herself a failure, and retrieving those memories, remembering how much her heart ached not from blood loss, but that look in the princess’ eye as her stupid body gave out to lasers she failed to dodge, to repel them back like in the stories of old, sent her into isolation. She saw no one for weeks, trying to wrap her head around the truth that she wasn’t enough, never enough, and she would die on the castle’s doorstep again and again because she would never be enough. Someone hushed her softly as another pulled back her hair, combing their fingers through the strands. Wild/Link/Aryll lost everything, and she made the world follow her fate. The Era of Burning Fields. Blood Moons that never set until Zelda reigned them in herself. It should have been Link. Link should have stopped the Calamity that destroyed Hyrule to be reclaimed by the wilds. Her cries were too high, her robe not secure. It didn’t matter.

Because she was not the imposter. 

It hurt like no other, to know the burden weighing on her since retrieving her first memories were never hers to begin with. The deaths of thousands and the champions— her dear Mipha— were not because of her shaky grip on a blade that could barely survive outside of its resting place. 

She cried for her champions, for her people, for her mother and a brother she once cursed for forcing her to take his mantle, for the great tree that pushed her because it was the only way Calamity’s ichor could be finally wiped from their hundred year plague. 

And around her were not men consoling her because she was a woman or man or something else, but because they knew the pain of burden that anchored them, threatening to drown them. They were there because they were in this together. 

Small hands pulled at her wrist to uncover her face. And when she looked up, it was Wind, eyes as red as hers, too young to be so knowing. His fingers scraped her cheeks, careful of the scars marring her face, and wiped them dry. All around her were heroes— no, hylians that saw too much, took on so much and barely lived to tell their tales. She was among them. 

A handkerchief was offered at some point, and more people took up the bed around her than before while others tried not to crowd. And maybe someone finally figured out how to work her slate, because when she stopped shaking, a warm mug was pressed into her hands smelling of cinnamon and honey. 

Hushed voices spoke around, easy conversation. Four had turned to Twilight at some point. “So, you finally admitted it?”

“What, you knew, too?”

“Your face is a dead give away.” 

Hylia, she almost choked on her tea, and the others joined in, remarking their own overlooks at their companion. However, Legend sat across from her and watched, his chin rested on his palm.

“So did you,” started Legend, a frown making his worry lines show through, “say you didn’t choose to identify as a man?”

And that’s the last big lynel in the room. Even while hidden under her robe, she felt like the binder was on display for all to see how she disguised herself, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. But that’s not right, not anymore. “I did before. I was to be the replacement son, then when I drew the sword—” she paused, thinking of the right words that they would all understand as heroes. “All of Hyrule looked up to me, sought for this beacon of light to save them from this impending doom, and even if so much history had been lost, we grew up on stories of men of great power, loyal and serving, immovable and stoic. Never a woman. What would happen, in the hour just before the looming threat would appear, that a supposed woman pulled the sword?”

Warrior understood, knew how the threat of a black sorceress like Cia brought on a witch hunt to find her, to take out any possible disciples when there were none. “They’d think you stole it.”

She nodded. “They’d think I seduced the real hero and slit his throat in his sleep before they ever believed me.” How many of those classic novels in her home included such tales? “I’m not a princess. Such a sword held by me would never be taken as fact.” Even as a man, her own peers challenged her position, envious of the sword. It would be tenfold if they thought her a woman. 

Wind had been silent but twiddling his fingers in thought. “So then, what do you want to be called?”

He saw as many eyes looked to him bewildered, as if they hadn’t thought of that, that they hadn’t considered. She knew Twilight debated it, struggling to address her just earlier and asked safely among her and Sidon, but it was the youngest that asked questions with difficult but important answers to what would feel like an afterthought among all the revelations. 

What a strange feeling, to sit before her predecessors and some from other timelines, wondering what she/they/he wanted to be. It’s a doover. And Wild has been given so many doovers. She wasn’t out to her Hyrule’s people, but that wasn’t what Wind asked her. That didn’t mean she disliked being a man. . . 

“I don’t think I know.”

Legend nodded. “Ravio’s the same way. Or, they don’t really identify with anything.” When given odd looks by the others, he shrugged. “It’s never mattered to them like that. You feel the same way, Wild?”

No. Yes. Maybe. That felt wrong. She often thought of herself mentally as a woman, did she not? But that didn’t mean she didn’t sometimes prefer the role of a man, found kinship there and a sense of belonging. It didn’t mean Wild didn’t sometimes feel more man than woman and didn’t mind pursuing deeper into such an identity when she forgot about the binder and just felt right. But more often than not, she felt like a woman, thrived among the Gerudo, wanted to feel beautiful and elegant and grow out her hair further than it already has and wear clothes that accentuated her body, then some days wish her chest was fully flat and jaw wider. The scars that ruined the skin around her breast didn’t help with the dysphoria. So maybe. . . “I don’t think so. I think I prefer to identify as. . . a woman. But I’m pulled to manhood as well, just maybe not always and vice versa.”

“Okay, and what would you like us to call you by? ‘She?’ ‘He?’ ‘They?’”

“I think ‘he.’ . . .” She looked at each of them, all waiting patiently, encouragingly her. “When I’m around you, I don’t think of myself as a woman.”

Time nodded at that. “My Zelda is much the same.” When minor gasp and eyes directed to him, he only shrugged. “Much like you, it was for duty first. But there are many days where Zelda prefers to be Sheik.”

“So it is possible,” Wild asked, “to go back and forth?” To not choose one or neither, but switch based on feeling? 

“Very much so.” He smiled warmly, knowingly. 

Wild smiled back, feeling more right in his skin, his role, than he has ever remembered.

A spotlight may not change the snail, but the snail will still one day outgrow its shell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Twilight suggest fear of Wild purposely hurting theirself. Mentions of blood. Wild wakes up with their binder exposed. This chapter involves a lot of gender talk that I think can be frustrating to read. I also wanted to mention that this chapter delves into Wild dealing with imposter syndrome and their birthsex is wrapped into it. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> I added the additional confusion about the binder not because I think them all clueless, but I wanted Wild to have the chance to come out on their own. Being outed is horrible especially when one isn’t ready, so I wanted there to be a positive interaction where Wild has control over such a detail with the rest of them.
> 
> I wanted to say that I decided to avoid any specific labelling. I think labels can especially help to put a name to how you feel and find others like you, but I’m choosing to not use a label for mood. just using terms like genderfluid and agender feel too clinical or modern for the language I’ve used so far. But that doesn’t mean characters don’t feel certain ways and such, it’s just that the feeling is described and in a manner that is understandable without a specific term attached. I also felt that placing a label restricted exploration, which is what Wild was doing. Even when I writing this, it was difficult to even describe gender identity. Gender identity itself is rooted in gender roles, and to describe them in detail-- about actions of femininity and masculinity-- you just get hit with this realization that gender is kind of a ridiculous concept. I mean, and bear with me for this random history lesson, Native Americans had transgender people. It was rare, but not odd, and it was based on gender roles, as in women stayed close to the tribe and tended crops and made decisions for the tribe while men hunted, went to war, etc. But wanting to be the other? Not a huge deal. Great. Gender identity wasn’t based in birthsex like it was for European cultures. And even with that said, it’s more or less agreed such constructs were specifically built and defined (similarly to race) to ensure cheap labor. If it’s agreed that a group exist that is lesser, even if they produce at the same rate as someone of a higher class, why pay them the same wage (ex: Lowell Mills; slavery/Jim Crow)? Continuing on, we have plenty of accounts of people disguising themselves or simply choosing to live differently than what they were born as throughout history. ANYWAY, TL;DR, gender is a social construct and should be recognized as indefinite. You should never be denied to express yourself and live in a manner that is most comfortable to you. Live how you want to, not how others wish to see you. Thank you for reading my tangent.
> 
> Overall, this was fun to write. Thanks for reading, and please let me know if there are any concerns with the content, from misinformation of gender discussion or from canon (I haven’t played many of the games, so I’m sort of winging it and stretching where I think I can. It’s interesting to learn about the other games, their differences, and try to fill in lore, like Warrior’s Cia). (Oh, and let me know of typos!)
> 
> (I would also like to inform the class I wrote the imposter line before Among Us went viral, and now reading it back it's so flipping corny, holy oh my god XD )

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr [here](https://janazzaa.tumblr.com/) or my art blog [here](https://janazza-makes.tumblr.com/)!!!
> 
> A big thank you again for the wonderful art from [DreamoftheWild](https://dreamofthe-wild.tumblr.com/post/641061256030208000/fanart-for-janazzaas-fanfic-different-on) and [Lidoshkha](https://lidoshka.tumblr.com/post/643465836347146240/flowers-for-a-friend-part-of-the-linked-universe)!!! I adore them so much, please go visit their pages!


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